Lossing Quality while using Adobe AfterEffects

[RaptorX]

Hi guys, I am creating some tutorial videos, and I am using camtasia studio for recording my screen.
After setting up the files with camtasia I produce them using the MP4 format bundled with the software.

The problem is that After I edit them on Adobe After Effects I have to render the video and badly enough I have to re-encode the video, so basically I lose some information there.

Now, I am working on a file that has already passed both processes (and I thought it was finished) but now I need to add some effects to it, and when I use AE to render, I lose a lot of quality. I tried using the "uncompressed" method which throws up the file size to the gigabytes (even though is just 7 min of video) and any other method I try results on the same loss of colors/quality.

I tried opening the file with Virtualdub and trying to use the "uncompressed" method and other methods as well with the same results...

So, what do you guys recomend for me to do?
How can I edit this video without losing the quality so badly?

[poisondeathray]

Don't compress them from camtasia (ie. don't produce mp4) ; if you use compression use lossless compression like huffyuv or lagarith in RGB mode, so you don't suffer generation loss each round you import/export

Stay in RGB colorspace the whole time (no color subsampling 4:4:4) at least until your final format goal; when you render to h.264/aac/mp4 colors will be subsampled (4:2:0) as this is YV12 colorspace

Use good settings for export when you do the final format (eg. adequate bitrate)

[RaptorX]

Thanks for the heads up, I will have to research a little because most of those terms are alien to me

I am setting up videos for youtube, thats the reason Im enconding on camtasia because they prefer mp4's (not sure which encoding) and AE have that container + settings needed hidden somewhere that i cant find (I have the codecs installed and everything).

so besides this good info, is there any advice for me on how to encode using AE?
camtasia has this feature of extracting an avi file from their .camrec so that avi would be the "pure" original that im working on.

[poisondeathray]

you can change camtasia to record huffyuv for example, I can't recall offhand if you can import .camrec into AE, but you can huffyuv or lagarith for sure

AE works in RGB colorspace, so you should keep everything in RGB (you screencapture => AE => only when your final export do you convert to YV12

you can export h.264/aac/mp4 directly out of AE (make sure you use a high enough bitrate e.g. ~5-10Mb/s for 720p30) , or you can use x264 (e.g. export out uncompressed , or lossless compression then use x264)

[RaptorX]

I have two codec packs, I use CCCP and "Codecpack de Elisoft" I will check if they come with those codecs (I think I saw lagarith), I have x.264 installed so if you say that I can use lossless compression then I think I will try that in the future, but this video I have right now, is there a way I can work on it?

[poisondeathray]

but this video I have right now, is there a way I can work on it?

Do you mean the .camrec or the .mp4 ?

If you still have the camrec you can probably salvage it, just replace the asset in AE with the higher quality camrec (if AE doesn't support camrec, then encode that camrec to uncompressed or lossless, then use that)

Exactly what is wrong with the video? Can you post a screenshot ? Maybe of the original capture and whatever you exported

[RaptorX]

General
Complete name : F:\Ep1 - Variables.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 332 MiB
Duration : 15mn 59s
Overall bit rate : 2 904 Kbps

Video
ID : 0
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High 4:4:4 Predictive@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : AVC1
Duration : 15mn 59s
Bit rate : 1 487 Kbps
Width : 1 024 pixels
Height : 768 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Original frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.063
Stream size : 170 MiB (51%)
Writing library : x264 core 68 r1195bm 5d75a9b
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=0:0:0 /
analyse=0x1:0x11 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=0.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 /
trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=0,0 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=1 / thread_queue=1 /
nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / bframes=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=cqp / qp=0

Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Unsigned
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 15mn 59s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 411.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 161 MiB (49%)
Interleave, duration : 1000 ms (29.97 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration : 1000 ms

[RaptorX]

That is the current file, it was an MP4 and I used x264 and left the audio uncompressed. But any time I enter this file on AE and try to render it I lose quality. There is no way I can edit this file and I am not sure why.

EDIT:

Probably this is the problem:
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Is this what you are trying to tell me to avoid? how do I avoid that?

Also I have the settings of the x264 on Single Pass - Lossless, AVC, avc1

[poisondeathray]

If that's all you have, you can't avoid some quality loss because AE will convert to RGB (and then you have to convert back to YV12 when you export, which loses even more quality - each colorspace conversion is lossy)

You can minimze the quality loss if you export an RGB format out of AE , or increase the bitrate of the export from AE

x264 lossless isn't lossless. It's only lossless if you source is YV12. Your screen capture is RGB, so you need an RGB lossless format e.g. lagarith.

If this is for flash, or streaming, they only support YV12 formats anyway - so you will have to incur loss at some point. The point is to not convert back & forth to avoid additional losses

Again, exactly what is wrong with the quality? Maybe there's something else going on in addition, or some settings messed up

[RaptorX]

no, the only issue is loss of color and since I (naive me) was using a gradient the color loss is too evident, you can see how the video should look here: www.youtube.com/ahktuts, The first 10 seconds are the intro that is going from good colors to amazingly crappy quality. So i think it all boils down to the RGB > YV12 > RGB problem... The first video was simple to do and didnt have much modifications but this ones I need to make a ninja edit but now I cant, and I am not sure if there is any workaround even if I must use a different software instead of AE.

[jagabo]

Keep in mind that high compression codecs usually used YV12 chroma subsampling and will blur small colored objects like text:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319360-DVD-LAB-PRO-color-map?p=1977264&viewfull=1#post1977264

[RaptorX]

Keep in mind that high compression codecs usually used YV12 chroma subsampling and will blur small colored objects like text:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319360-DVD-LAB-PRO-color-map?p=1977264&viewfull=1#post1977264

404'ed

[poisondeathray]

You can't avoid YV12 if you use youtube; in addition youtube uses low bitrate , so even if you dither to help reduce the banding, it wont work very well (you need higher bitrate in order for dithering to work)

As mentioned above, ALL streaming formats are YV12

[jagabo]

404'ed

Fixed.

[RaptorX]

according to mediainfo this file is on YUV Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits ok so the last question would be: using after effects I wouldnt be able to edit it without losing colors, is there any other alternative? is there any way that I can edit this file without affecting is colors? as in encoding it in a way that I dont change back to RGB. Sorry if it sounds too newb but i have never took the time to enter deeper in to the video topics, I usually just created them and uploaded them, now im editing and rendering stuff xD

[poisondeathray]

according to mediainfo this file is on YUV Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits ok so the last question would be: using after effects I wouldnt be able to edit it without losing colors, is there any other alternative? is there any way that I can edit this file without affecting is colors? as in encoding it in a way that I dont change back to RGB. Sorry if it sounds too newb but i have never took the time to enter deeper in to the video topics, I usually just created them and uploaded them, now im editing and rendering stuff xD

You already had loss when you used camstudio and encoded an .mp4 file (that was YUV 4:2:0) . You can't recover that loss (irreversible).

The original camrec is RGB 4:4:4 . This is why you should stay in RGB as long as possible, AE works in RGB colorspace. The alternative is to edit huffyuv or lagarith RGB in AE . But even if you export a lossless RGB format from AE , YOUTUBE will screw everything up (it will subsample the colors and use a low bitrate)

[RaptorX]

Ok so the solution will be, extracting the "pure" avi from a camrec which should be RGB 4:4:4, then if the video is bigger than 10min split it using virtualdub without processing the video or audio (so i have a verbatim split) then add some stupid shit on AE and try to render it with lagarith or huffyuv or some other lossless codec to get the smallest loss possible and then pass it through camtasia (the final fx) and encode it on mp4 like youtube like it.

I have to use both programs because one of them has stuff that the other one hasnt so I am trying to keep the coding/recoding at minimum.

Question: what happens if I use the Exact same compression that the video already has? is it double compressed or it would happen like when zipping a zip file (no change at all).

[poisondeathray]

It would be faster to configure camtasia to record huffyuv directly (configure it for RGB mode) . These files can be used in AE directly (or vdub)

Question: what happens if I use the Exact same compression that the video already has? is it double compressed or it would happen like when zipping a zip file (no change at all).

There is no change in compression . (maybe a very tiny change in filesize, when you add effects etc..., because the file is changed)

Also, what "final fx" are you doing in camtasia that you can't do in AE? (Why so many steps?)

Note, when you encode through camtasia to mp4, you will lose quality (both colorspace 4:2:0 sampling , and compression losses) , and when youtube re-encodes it again, you lose even more quality

[RaptorX]

Also, what "final fx" are you doing in camtasia that you can't do in AE? (Why so many steps?)

Note, when you encode through camtasia to mp4, you will lose quality (both colorspace 4:2:0 sampling , and compression losses) , and when youtube re-encodes it again, you lose even more quality

the thing is that there are some predefined callers and highlighters in camtasia that are ready to be used, if I go for AE I would have to create them myself and would take more time, With AE, I am just fadding adding layer styles and some other quick stuff which is easier there than camtasia because atm camtasia only allows 1 main video track and 1 PIP which some times is not enough.

The edits are not big deal, thats why Im very thankful with your suggestions because the quality loss is too much compared to the edits that I am making. So any Idea how to minimize that is welcome.

I am aware of the last part, thats why your info has been very helpful because im trying to avoid conversion as much as I can so when youtube grabs it, it makes the changes from RGB 4:4:4 to whatever they go for, so the losses are not that much.

[fitch.j]

Export From Camtasia Losslessy in RGB for import to AE, Then Export Losslessly from AE, then encode to your final youtube friendly format.

Also skip your VirtualDub step of cutting the video up, why not just cut it up as part of one of the other processes ? For example render out sections from AE in 10 min blocks?

You dont want to use any lossy conversions until your final stage of encoding and what will go onto youtube. If your final stage is After Effects then still render it out losslessly and then use another encoder to create your delivery format as the encoder in AE won't do you a 2-pass encode. Adobe Media Encoder is fine for this but many other options are available. The Quicktime PNG option is a good choice for a lossless render from AE.